1958 – Sheldon, Birmingham – Orange Orb Sightings

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Year: 2016

Last Updated: 01/10/2025

In September 2016 I gave a talk alongside an experiencer at a conference held in the building alongside All Saints Church in Moseley. At the conference I met a man named Gordon Holmes. He informed me he had a childhood UFO sighting he wanted to discuss. We did not have long to talk so I asked him to send me the details to investigate over the following days.

Sightings Details

In 1958 when Gordon was 10 years old he was a pupil at Mapledene Junior and Infants School on Mapledene Road, Sheldon, Birmingham.

 Gordon’s classroom was on the first floor of the two storey building visible in the above photograph. One day he was gazing out of the window during a lesson when he suddenly noticed a glowing orange orb of light. It appeared from nowhere and passed along the length of the driveway in an undulating manner.

As it moved, the other children in the class noticed it and also started watching it. Gordon says that some of the girls were frightened by it and began crying, whereas others rushed to the window to get a better look. He believes that the orb was emitting some kind of energy to deliberately instil fear in anyone who observed it. However, he himself was more curious that frightened.

When it reached the end of the driveway the orb took off over the nearby roundabout and passed over the roof of the Infants School in a South Easterly direction.

After it had departed the teacher tried to restore some order by commanding the children to return to their desks. According to Gordon they then tried passing the orb off as ball lightning and told them it was nothing to worry about.

Later on that day when class was dismissed, he walked to a local convenience store with some friends on the crossroads with Cranes Park Road to buy a Mars bar.

After purchasing the chocolate Gordon and his friends were standing close to the shop entrance when they suddenly heard someone shouting that the orange ball had come back! Gordon looked up and watched the orb pass right over the roof of the shop, over his head then fly off in the same meandering manner as before, once again heading South East.

On the opposite side of the shop was open fields, with Elmdon Airport visible in the distance. Gordon noted that the orb had flown away in the direction of the terminal building on the airport.

The airport is much larger now and known as Birmingham International Airport, and housing now exists where the fields once were. Decades on, Gordon still thinks about the orb and wonders what it was and what it was doing there on that day.

Sightings Analysis

This is quite a fascinating daytime repeat sighting of one or two glowing UFOs. The orbs were clearly not normal aircraft, helicopters or hot air balloons due to their appearance, low altitude and apparent small size. They also looked very different to remote controlled models. The sightings occurred many decades before drones were commercially available, and as it was daylight the structure would have been visible.

The teacher’s explanation of ball lightning was clearly incorrect, as ball lightning only appears in stormy weather conditions. Earth lights are also very improbable, these are quite rare and tend to only appear over remote rural or swampy areas.

If it had happened in more recent times I would have potentially put the orbs down to a couple of sky lanterns launched at different times, although these tend to be launched after dark. This incident happened right back in the 1950s, decades before such things were available to purchase.

That said, it is possible that someone nearby created two home-made lanterns and for some reason launched them in the daytime. Although it could be interpreted that it was a singular object remaining in the vicinity and moving with intent, in reality it was two separate sightings of similar looking objects travelling on a roughly straight course. The meandering movement of the orbs could be explained as natural drift occurring as they travelled along in air currents.

I feel that given the facts of what took place, two separately launched lit inflatables is the most likely explanation, both of which happen to have been witnessed by the same individuals.

Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025